Labor News

Reprinted from The AFL-CIO’s blog Now by Kenneth Quinnell on February 7, 2017.

Judge Neil Gorsuch was nominated to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court. Soon the US Senate will hold hearings on his nomination. In taking a deeper look at Gorsuch’s record, there are quite a few rulings and writings that should concern working people. As a private lawyer and as a judge, he has aligned himself with the interests of Big Business, not the concerns of working families. He has ruled against protecting the health and safety of workers, made it harder to have discrimination-free workplaces and argued for corporations’ misconduct to be protected from correction by investors and consumers. Here are a few examples:

1. An excavator operator died on the job after being electrocuted by an overhead power line at a surface mine site. The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission investigated, finding a serious violation of safety regulations and imposed on the employer a $5,550 fine, which the employer appealed. While the majority of the court upheld the commission’s findings against the employer, Gorsuch dissented, contending that this case was yet another example of administrative agencies wielding “remarkable powers” and “penalizing” the company even when no evidence existed. (Compass Environmental Inc. v. OSHRC, 10th Circuit, 2011) …